Oedipus Rex Free Will

Improved Essays
“No skill in the world, nothing human can penetrate the future” The statement comes from the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. This statement is said by Jocasta when she is trying to ease the pain and stress on Oedipus after the oracle tells Oedipus that he will kill his own father and marry his own mother. The meaning of fate is the development of events outside a person’s control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power. The definition of “free will” is made or done freely. Free will and fate have always been intertwined with one another with King

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In some ways, success can be negative because it heightens a person’s values to a fault. In The Odyssey, Odysseus becomes overconfident after he escapes Polyphemus and takes his search for Kleos too far. He shouts angrily, “Cyclops-/ if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you so-say ODysseus, raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca!” (9.558-562). In response, Polyphemus throws a boulder which nearly hits Odysseus's ship.…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chance, or lack thereof, is one of the reoccurring themes in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Throughout the plot of the story, Oedipus encounters situations that cause him to make irrational and quick decisions. These decisions lead him to his ultimate fate, marrying his mother and killing his father. Oedipus’ life is not up to fate, the decisions he makes are ultimately reflected in the ending of the tragedy; without these decisions, there would be no plot, they are essential to the progression of the play. As Jokasta is speaking to Oedipus, she tells him, “Why should a human being live in fear?…

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Oedipus Free Will

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Fate is a series of events that are destined to happen but can be affected by a person’s choices out of free will. In the time of the story, Oedipus Rex, a person's fate is controlled by the gods, and trying to go against their fate is like going against the gods. Laius and Jocasta learn from the oracle that if they have a child, then their child’s fate will be to kill their father and marry their mother. When Laius and Jocasta accidently have a child, Oedipus, they attempt to avoid their fate and Oedipus’s fate by trying to kill him. Because Oedipus did not know that Laius and Jocasta were his parents, he killed his father and married his mother unintentionally.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Euripides’s Bacchae is a tragedy about a mother killing her son. While the plot of it is very simple, the thematic implication is what makes this play so fascinating. One of the themes in this tragedy is one about free will. Free will, or the absence of it, is a catalyst for the end result of the tragedy. Two very important mortal characters in this play, King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, are both stripped of their free will and are manipulated by Dionysus, the god of wine and madness.…

    • 1595 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Humanity perpetually attempts to fabricate an abstract concept of freewill—in which man governs his fate through his choice of conduct. Perhaps, however, humanity has deceived itself to obscure the infallible construct that governs mundane existence. Perhaps the confines of fate bind humanity to inevitable tragedy, and mankind is subject to the inexorability of the unperceivable. In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus the King, prophet and oracle of Apollo, Tiresias, embodies a pivotal role as both a tragic hero and instrument of inevitable calamity for central protagonist, Oedipus. Tiresias functions as a veracious construct of the inevitability of fate, through the subjection of the play’s embodiment of exaltation and grandeur, Oedipus, to utter futility, explicating the inferiority of self-perceived freewill in the face of fate.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Oedipus Riddle

    • 143 Words
    • 1 Pages

    As a baby, Oedipus was given an oracle saying that he was to kill his father and marry his mother. When Oedipus’ father heard this, he immediately abandoned Oedipus on the side of the road. Shortly after, the King of Corinth found the baby and nursed him back to health with his wife. When Oedipus grew up, “he learned from the Delphic oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother” (“Oedipus”). After hearing this, Oedipus immediately ran away from home to create a new home in Thebes.…

    • 143 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Oedipus the king is play that was written around the time before christ, early, (est. 430 b.c.). “Oedipus the King” was set in the city of Thebes. Oedipus has a fate or destiny that is set on him from the Greek Gods before he was born. He is blinded his whole life and is oblivious of his past. Oedipus has set out to figure his fate and comprehend the murder of Laius.…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Oedipus Rex Justice

    • 111 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Oedipus Rex is a novel full of justice. Especially once he finds out he is adopted. His whole life was a lie therefore now he is in "search for justice. As a result, for a long journey that he traveled; he found it.…

    • 111 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    "If a decision-making process is flawed and dysfunctional, decisions will go awry" (Fiorina). Alternatively, if a defective and debilitated judgemental actions are made, those decisions can go astray. In Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus make decisions on a flawed manner on his decision-making process. His fear of not knowing who the murderer of King Laius caused him to act unreasonably. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, one choice made all the influence; Oedipus’ decision to find King Laius’ murderer, had a bigger effect on the…

    • 83 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Greek mythology, humans are often portrayed as mere pieces of a board game played by the gods. Fate plays an essential role in Antigone and Oedipus Rex, where it unfolds and leads to the tragedy of these characters. Despite superficial differences between the plots, there is the irony of the futility of free choice present in both poems. These characters use personal approaches in efforts to alter their prophecies, yet that ‘freedom’ of action is ultimately driven by fate.…

    • 1522 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Antigone Fate Vs Free Will

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In a speech by Paulo Coelho, he stated, “I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed” (Fate Quotes). This shows the idea of fate vs free will. It demonstrations how ones fate is controlled by God, but one has the choice to determine how they will react to his or her own fate.…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Free will is definitely more noticeable in the Old Testament compare to the Greek literature we have read in class. However, talk of fate and destiny had way more of an appearance in Greek literature compare to the idea of free will. Whenever a individual felt lost and didn't know what to do next, they would look at the foretold prophecies. Being able to look at prophecies diminishes the idea of free will since it allows an individual to be able to see the future, and prophecies are supposed to "written in stone" meaning that they don't change. Unless of course there was a way to read the prophecies while they're updating, but even then there would still be some kind of endless loop of having to rely on the prophecies.…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Fate vs free will in Hamlet and Oedipus Outline Introduction: Fate can be defined as “a power that determines the event in the future. In the fate the events of man are already determined.” What is freewill? “The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion.”…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Gilgamesh believes that he is immortal and cannot die therefore the people of Uruk ask the Sumerian gods to create an individual equal to Gilgamesh. Enkidu was created the Gods of wisdom Enlil, Ea gave Gilgamesh the fate to see visions in his dream, and he knew Enkidu was coming and he was to love him as a woman. Gilgamesh and Enkidu became great friends and decided together to conquer the world together and to live forever, to have mortality. Upon the death of his companion realization became apparent to Gilgamesh that death will always come, which is something Gilgamesh has to understand, it becomes so with the death of his friend Enkidu, there is no such thing as immortality, and friendship is crucial in life. Fate is not of our own doing but the doing of others and freewill gives us the decisions to make choices in our lives.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fate vs. Free Will Many believe that fate is what will control a person’s destiny and once it is set up for them, there’s no changing it, but others believe that free will has also a big part to rewrite a person's destiny. Oedipus was born with a terrible fate that wasn’t his fault or his choosing. All he could do was try to change his destiny or help it come true.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays